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Melissa Addison-Webster can’t remember the feeling she got as her tibia cracked while she drove to work, but she can remember the sting it left when she was told it could be at least three weeks until she could get a spot in a short-term care bed to recover.

“I cried because I can’t live like this anymore,” said the quadriplegic social worker, who uses a wheelchair and, since the accident, has relied on family and friends to help her get dressed, prepare meals and use the washroom.

Though her local Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) arranged for her to receive nine extra hours a week with a home care worker, Addison-Webster said she was told there wasn’t a bed to accommodate the short-term care home stay her doctor recommended.

That was until the Star reached out to CCAC and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for comment on the alleged shortage.

Shortly after, 37-year-old Addison-Webster received word that a bed had unexpectedly opened up.

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But not everyone has that luck, said Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra.

She’s heard of plenty of people awaiting a short-term care spot, often in a long-term care home, who can’t nab a bed while they recover from brutal injuries.

Sometimes they end up getting better before a bed opens up. Other times, the patients seek alternatives, paying out of their own pocket for spots in care facilities or for round-the-clock care at home.

“It is a big problem, and it leaves people in difficult situations,” Mehra said.

Dipti Purbhoo, Toronto Central’s CCAC senior director of client services, said, “Generally there are beds available in convalescent care in Toronto. However, during times when demand is high some individuals may wait for a couple of weeks.”

That demand is significantly higher in summer, when caregivers are taking vacations and high-needs patients requiring in-depth care are looking for short-term stays, said Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.

Shae Greenfield, a spokesperson for the ministry, said in an email to the Star that “the province does not currently capture short-term care wait times.”

“Our goal is to ensure that patients receive timely access to the most appropriate care in the most appropriate place — and that the needs of Ontario’s patients are at the centre of the system,” he said. “Although we cannot speak to individual cases due to privacy laws, our expectation is that CCAC case managers work with patients or their families to ensure that clients are receiving the care that they need, when they need it.”

Hearing that her expected wait time was cut short was a massive relief for Addison Webster, who lost some hand functions and sensation in her legs after a 2000 car crash.

She quickly became a social justice advocate pushing for better access to care. Her own disabilities means she relies on six hours of home care every week from a personal support worker.

Since her recent July accident and finding no bed to recover in, she had been searching for a private care home spot, which she planned to fund with money she had been saving for a new wheelchair-accessible van.

The available bed, she said, would allow her to recover for a few months without continuing to inconvenience four friends and her mother, who had been driving from Peterborough to help her out.

“How many people would have the opportunity to have friends that love them enough that they will come and help with dumping pee?” Addison-Webster said. “I feel really honoured and blessed, but then I wake up and I think about the people who don’t have this. What would I do if I had no one?”

That’s a question she’s thankful she doesn’t have to answer, but the fact that there was a wait in the first place, she said, means the system is still falling short.

“I think it is abysmal that we live in a place where people suffer in their homes because they can’t get care,” she said. “It’s heart-breaking.”

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